The seminar will take place with synchronous sessions at tuesdays, from 12:00 to 14:00 german time (13:00 to 15:00 Finland time), where you should be available to participate via internet connection, and asynchronous, self-organised project work in groups of two to four students.
For questions or requests for participation as student or guest, please mail to wey-han.tan [at] uni-hamburg.de.

Unfortunately, from my point of view - as a sympathiser of radical constructivism - there’s no ‘neutral’ scientific theory of learning, since every learning theory, every teaching methodology has and will always be tainted by the socio-political and the technical reality of its time, as well as by the imagined utopia of its developers and practitioniers.

For this, I was very interested in George Siemens’ presentation of his proposed ‘learning theory for the digital age’, as much for it’s theoretical foundation as for its epistemological tilt.
By reading his text “Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age” (2004), three key topics arose which I had hoped would lead to a lively and critical discussion:
A perceived objectivistic turn, the allocated role of technology, and the supposed new way organisations learn.

Unfortunately, only the first one got some attention, since the time for discussion - 11 minutes (!) to discuss a ‘paradigmatic shift’ - was much too short.

So, my first question about the objectivistic turn was as follows:

“(…) chaos states that the meaning exists - the learner’s challenge is to recognize the patterns which appear to be hidden.” (Siemens 2004)
Connectivism seems to be a rather profound return to an objectivistic concept of knowledge, meaning knowledge can be discovered, instead of being constructed, in the informational noise of networks.
Is this epistemological turn one out of necessesity, to ease the plight and responsibility of the learner/searcher in a chaotic flood of information - one of constructicism’s grave weaknesses? Or does connectivism restricts the discovery to certain areas, where a well-defined outcome at the end can be expected, or is wished for (i.e. formal education, commercial transactions, hard sciences etc.)?
What is the role of digital mechanisms - like search algorithms, knowledge agents, or datamining processes - in discovering ‘the’ meaning, compared to the role of humans? How does a connectivistic paradigma thus change our view on truth, identity and the real?

Owen Kelly greatly helped in asking further questions also concerning the connectivistic handling of culturally independent, objective truths, as did Arie Noordzij, who mentioned Paul Feyerabend’s theories on scientific methodology and progress.
Some outcomes crossed my mind before the discusssion, and I was hoping for a clarification by Siemens:

1.) It’s Siemens’ personal, and therefore intangible position on objective truth, which he had worked into his theories, maybe to counter some deficits in former theories. For example constructivism can’t deliver the learner from irritation and aporia, a serious drawback in the face of an exponential growing dataverse. Although a turn to objectivism is thus understandable, this is from my point of view quite disputable, maybe even risky, at least in the humanities.
After Siemens remarks on discussing objective and subjective truths, this seems to me to be the most likely explanation, because “This discussion leads us away from the path of happiness.” (Siemens).
At some point of the discussion, it reminded me on a very influential political speech from 2002 - though not by Siemens - where there was stated: “Moral truth is the same in every culture, in every time, and in every place.”

2.) It’s a result of a rationalistic and teleological view on the subject of a digitally networked society, a turning to the heyday of cybernetics and information theory, when it was proposed that not only communications, but also ethics could - and should - be expressed in mathematical formulas, to find the one common ground of action every rational human would share. This would seem to be on the one hand a bit old-fashioned, but on the other hand quite viable for a “learning theory for the digital age” when viewed from the actual biologistic turn learning theories are taking (see Christoph Bardtke’s lecture on Manfred Spitzer’s neurochemical/neurophysiological approach).
Personally, I’m a huge fan of the concept of a technological singularity, as Vernor Vinge described it, though it seems to conflict with some of the base tenets of radical constrcutivism.
I ruled this out, since Siemens stressed the importance of human diversity too much for this option, though I can’t be entirely sure.

3.) It’s a near-religious belief of ‘the truth’ being buried in the white noise of networking, to be found by digital means. This is an interesting idea I think William Gibson first turned up with in his Neuromancer Trilogy, where there are several people (for example Gentry) who try to find a godlike Gestalt in the background noise of the cyberspace; a kind of modernized version of the cabbalistic art of Gematria.
This would have been an idea very exciting to discuss in it’s shrewdness, but was certainly out of question.

I’d liked to have the remaining two topics seen discussed, but the time was just too short:

About the role of new technology:

“Behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism are the three broad learning theories most often utilized in the creation of instructional environments. These theories, however, were developed in a time when learning was not impacted through technology.” (Siemens 2004)
Does the relationship between digital processes and human cognition differ from what has been proposed by the ‘cybernetic turn’ in the 70ies? Back then, individual, social, and technical ‘cognitive’ processes were seen as compatible, interconnectible and utopically symbiotic, too.
Is the main difference to cybernetics/cognitivism the letting be of individual human cognition to be fuzzy - and then to harvest this fuzzyness statistically by digital means to find meaning?

About the idea of learning organisations:

“These theories (note: behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism) do not address learning that occurs outside of people (i.e. learning that is stored and manipulated by technology). They also fail to describe how learning happens within organizations.” (Siemens 2004)
How do digitally organized groups and communities ‘learn’? Is the process the same - but faster - as the one called tradition and transmission, meaning evolutive mutation and selection of social knowledge over time?
Is the digitally organized form of social knowledge the key difference to a constructivist viewpoint that learning is embedded in and situative to a culture (for example Brown et al. (1989), „Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning“), which stores it ‘knowledge’ in form of narratives, habitus, architecture etc.?

I hope these questions will pop up sometimes in our future discussions or lectures.

http://w3.ub.uni-konstanz.de/v13/volltexte/1999/286//pdf/286_1.pdf

Abstract:
Distance Learning and the studies at virtual universities enjoy rising popularity and spreading due to better technical possibilities. Yet not only the process of learning but also examining could take place at two different localities in the future. The basic question this thesis is going to deal with is whether oral exams can be carried out as web videoconferences. The aspects to be dealt with are whether oral exams can pose an acceptable and equivalent alternative to face-to-face exams from a psychological, formal-legal and technical point of view.
In the psychological part the differences between conventional exams and tele exams are described as well as the effects with regard to perception. Simultaneously, recommendations for the behaviour during such exams and for the composition of the videoconference equipment are given.
In the chapter about the formal-legal perspective further demands to tele exams are formulated. They comprise the agreement of examiner and examinee about the test form, the perfect functioning of the equipment and connection of the conference, the prohibition of making direct expenses for the exam and the fulfilment of organizational demands.
In the technical part the hard- and software components of video conference systems, the importance and function of elementary standards, effects brought about by technical devices, problems and possible solutions are expounded.
A prospect to possible enlargements of videoconferencing systems in future exams, like the introduction of identification systems, increased possibilities of input by touch tablets and devices to record such conferences will follow the basic chapters.
In the evaluation at the end of the thesis it will be made clear that tele exams can be recommended at all costs for psychological reasons, with reservations for formal-legal reasons and under no circumstances for technical reasons at this very moment.

since Jana’s talk to Helena Härkönen (via phone) showed that no one from Hamburg is officially enroled at UIAH (a written and mail-posted re-enrolement-form is required), does anybody have the re-enrolement-form as a printable pdf-file?
I remember Christoph having this file… maybe he could post it here.

BTW, Is there a possibility to set up a ‘useful forms and informations’-pool here? With data like the correct IBAN/account-number for the study-fee and the re-enrolement-form? Would come in hand for probably most german students, I think.

Greetings,
Wey